Posted
by
kdawson
on Monday February 08, 2010 @08:08AM
from the letting-the-chips-fall dept.

The Washington Post updates a story we discussed last spring about a push in the Democratic-controlled congress to legalize some forms of Internet gambling in the US. "Partly bankrolled by offshore gambling companies, the campaign has already persuaded the Obama administration to delay enforcement of a 2006 law cracking down on Internet wagers. ... The federal government, which rarely prosecutes online gambling, would net billions of dollars in tax and licensing revenue if it were legalized, proponents say. ... The outlook on Capitol Hill, however, is uncertain given a slate of unfinished business... [and] nervousness among Democrats about November midterm challenges. ... [A politically conservative poker player said] 'There's a part of the party that always believes this isn't something people should do. But I think it behooves the party to be a little more broad-minded on this issue.'"

It's harder to regulate, and easier for people to get addicted and gamble away all their assets at home.

I'd much rather online gambling remain banned, and we unban brick and mortar casinos across the country. At least the latter can be regulated, brings money into the local economy, and gets people out of the house.

It's harder to regulate, and easier for people to get addicted and gamble away all their assets at home.

So, are you trying to ban etrade.com and "flipping houses"? Or is risk taking in general ok, and you just want to impose your peculiar morality about playing cards on others?

I'm not sure how its easier to get addicted to gambling at home. I can tell you don't have a spouse, house, and little kids, as god knows I can't accomplish any tasks at home anymore. Back in the bachelor apartment days, well yeah, maybe, and in addition to spare time, I also had more available cash to "gamble". D-n-D, watching sports, and MMORPGs suffer the same fate.

So, are you trying to ban etrade.com and "flipping houses"? Or is risk taking in general ok, and you just want to impose your peculiar morality about playing cards on others?

This is a tempting philosophical generalization, but there is a critical difference between gambling and your other examples of risk-taking. Trading securities has an element of supporting the work of the company involved: you are supporting constructive industry, whether you end up with a gain or a loss on your "bet" in the market.

Trading securities has an element of supporting the work of the company involved: you are supporting constructive industry, whether you end up with a gain or a loss on your "bet" in the market.

I suggest you research financial futures trading, commodity futures trading, currency futures trading, all of which are legal and no different than betting on whom gets three queens, and re-evaluate your position. Also if a company is not issuing stock, but is paying its $0.5M/yr exchange fee, its not necessarily constructively making money, not all that different from selling bonds or taking out a commercial loan and paying interest, could be constructive but not necessarily, nor is it the only way to rai

You can certainly use the futures market to gamble, and speculators help provide liquidity in those markets, but that's not their primary use, and on average a speculator loses money, just like a gambler in a casino.

There are also people making informed investments in these markets, and they tend to end up with most of the money that speculators lose. For example, producers and consumers of commodities are the reason that commodities futures markets exist, and those participants tend to make money at the e

It's nice and easy to label it all "risk-taking", but there is a distinction between betting on cards and buying houses. Quite honestly, I've never seen a problem with house-flipping; sure, there are probably marginal cases, but in general people buy houses that need real work done to them, do that work, then resell. Sounds completely above-board to me.

The difference between the Finance sector and Casinos is that in the Finance sector it is more common for "professionals" to gamble with OTHER people's money. If they win, they get a big bonus. If they lose small, they still get paid. If they lose big, at worst they have to change jobs. If everyone loses big, they get a bail out (and might still get bonuses).

"So, are you trying to ban etrade.com and "flipping houses"? Or is risk taking in general ok, and you just want to impose your peculiar morality about playing cards on others?"

They are not the same, Equities are investments, I don't know of any gambling site that pays dividends, do you?

Talk to the people who bought Bank of America stock at $40+. See if they think there is any "gambling" (or more commonly called risk in this context) in equities. Might want to ask them how their wonderful dividends are

Electronic gambling is a lot worse than the more traditional methods, even if the game is the same. It's not a coincidence that casinos are trying to switch to electronics wherever possible. They want to speed up the process as much as possible because over the long term, the house always wins, and the more hands a player can play, the quicker and larger the profits are. On top of that without the tactile handing over of chips players lose out on the feed back of how much their really wagering making it fee

"The title refers to a story about a visitor to New York who admired the yachts of the bankers and brokers. Naively, he asked where all the customers' yachts were? Of course, none of the customers could afford yachts, even though they dutifully followed the advice of their bankers and brokers."

It seems like poker, played against other RL opponents, would be outside the bounds of this, although there's no guarantee that you won't be stuck at a table with a bunch of other people colluding to take your money (or one person playing several seats).

No guarantee, but there are plenty of safeguards. The two biggest online poker sites, PokerStars and Full Tilt, each take colluding very seriously and if a player suspects something, they are encouraged to report it. With respect to one person playing several seats, there are also ways to detect and prevent that too. The above two risks you mention are very minimal and not really something to worry about at all.

1) Online gambling is no more difficult to regulate than brick-and-mortar casinos. If it were, you wouldn't have sports books and race tracks across the country taking wagers from people who are not onsite. Allowing the same thing to happen from someone's home is just a difference of degree, not of kind.

2) By making it legal, you make it possible to enforce monitoring of behaviors. Since players in the US would have to provide their SSNs for tax purposes, a central database of players could be maintained by the government (it would pretty much have to exist, again for tax purposes). That same database could be used to spot problem gamblers and steer them towards help. (Note that I personally am against this idea, but recognize it's inevitability.)

3) There is no third point.

4) I second the call for unbanning gambling in more areas. I live in North Texas, and the police in most of the towns here spend way, way too much time raiding private poker rooms, when they should be focusing on crimes with actual victims (if you voluntarily take part in something, by definition you cannot be a victim).

when they should be focusing on crimes with actual victims (if you voluntarily take part in something, by definition you cannot be a victim)

Two problems:

1) Best contemplate "malpractice" and "restaurant/grocery food safety laws" before making a victim definition. Also unless you were forced at gunpoint to drive, a drunk driver could not be responsible for your death because you were voluntarily driving.

2) The problem in your situation is the cops confusing "private poker rooms" as being the evil to be eradicated, being unable to punish the "private poker room" itself, so they just lash out at whomever is nearby, such as the people in attendanc

(if you voluntarily take part in something, by definition you cannot be a victim).

That's an absurd statement. If I voluntarily play a game of poker in some guy's garage, and he cheats, am I not a victim? If I buy stock in a company that falsified their bookkeeping, am I not a victim? If you voluntarily take part in a game that's called "You Are Guaranteed To Lose Your Money. And We Really Mean That. You Will Not Win." then maybe you would be correct, but that is never the case. By your logic if I voluntarily went outside and got murdered I wouldn't be a victim, because everyone knows th

"2) By making it legal, you make it possible to enforce monitoring of behaviors. Since players in the US would have to provide their SSNs for tax purposes, a central database of players could be maintained by the government (it would pretty much have to exist, again for tax purposes). That same database could be used to spot problem gamblers and steer them towards help. (Note that I personally am against this idea, but recognize it's inevitability.)"

Why should gambling be regulated at all? Cheating is fraud, that's already illegal. With illegal gambling, fraud is harder to prosecute, since the victim is also breaking the law.

and easier for people to get addicted and gamble away all their assets at home

It's not up to government to keep you from eating too much, drinking too much, or gambling too much. It should not be government's role to protect you from yourself, government's role should protect you from ME. You would like them to outlaw McDonald's because too many people can't help but shove so much junk food down their gullets that they become unhealthily obese? I supppose you want to outlaw World of Warcraft because some people screw their lives up with that? Outlaw alcohol because some people are alcoholics?

If you have a problem with gambling, that's a personal problem, not a public problem and is non of my or government's business.

and gets people out of the house

Dude, this is slashdot. Most of us don't even come out of the basement. HIBT?

Given a free and open market you don't need regulation, since the free market will clean it up. However, the whole point of gambling is working on limited and hidden information. Hence its inherently impossible to have a free market in gambling. Hence we need regulation.

Without victimless crimes we wouldn't have to worry about money laundering.

Given a free and open market you don't need regulation

Tell that to the people who died of salmonella last year from the poison peanut products. The worst part there was that the regulations weren't being enforced properly. If they had been, the filthy factory would have been shut down and nobody would have gotten sick.

You're against OSHA? OSHA protects you from unscrupulous employers. Had OSHA existed in 1959 my grand

You don't have to eat junk food to have a heart attack, and you don't have to smoke to get cancer. Also, the converse is true. My grandmother's doctor, for example, told her "you have to get your cholesterol down or you're going to die." Well, the doctor died. Her next doctor said the same thing, and she outlived him as well. After outliving three more doctors who all told her if she didn't get her cholesterol down she was going to die, she finally did die.

You do realize that the government taxes alcohol at a rate higher than most other products, right?

That's just a ruse to get more revenue. They tax gasoline at a higher rate than alcohol, but if that tax's purpose were to get people to use less gasoline they'd tax the purchase of SUVs at a higher rate than sedans as well. Same with cigarettes; the "they're bad for you so we'll tax them more" is a specious argument. Alcohol taxes don't make people drink any less, and cigarette taxes have some people rolling t

They tax gasoline at a higher rate than alcohol, but if that tax's purpose were to get people to use less gasoline they'd tax the purchase of SUVs at a higher rate than sedans as well

The implied purpose of the gasoline tax is to pay for the highway trust fund. It doesn't have a whole lot to do with discouraging people from driving.

I'd rather have direct government bureaucracy than insurance company bureaucracy

You'd rather have bureaucracy backed with guns than bureaucracy you can leave at anytime?

(which is why we have the current clusterfuck legislation instead of a Canadian or European style plan).

No, we have the current clusterfuck legislation because the Democrats know that single payer is dead on arrival. Do you seriously believe that the only thing stopping single payer is the evil insurance companies? You really think you could get single payer through the

You'd rather have bureaucracy backed with guns than bureaucracy you can leave at anytime?

It doesn't matter if it's a gun or cancer, a death threat is a death threat. The fact is I have no choice whatever about my insurance. I cannot leave at any time, and few others can either. If you're making $200k/yr you're fine, but the US median inaome is about 1/4 that. I have what my employer provides, and without it I simply could not afford to be insured, and almost everyone else with insurance is the same way. I'

I agree. Internet gambling, like all gambling, is a terrible idea. Because the odds are always tilted in the house's favor, you lost the moment you type in a URL or cross the physical threshold. Gambling preys on the poor, the weak, and the stupid, and I don't like the idea of living in a society where it's not only right, but justifiable to take advantage of another man's desperation.

You don't need to actually ban casinos to "ban" gambling, imprison anyone,etc All you need to do is declare that any debt accrued by playing in a casino is not legally considered a debt - so casino cannot legally force gamblers to pay (and if they resort to illegal means, well, that's easily countered - especially so long as betting itself isn't illegal, so the gambler doesn't have to "rat himself put" by going to police).

"...easier for people to get addicted and gamble away all their assets at home."

And it is the Federal Govt's mandate to prevent this...?

[Goes to get copy of Constitution to look for this enumerated power the Feds have concerning this...]

Seriously, part of being free...is being free to fsck up...to fail to make bad decisions. As a grown, adult, should I be deprived of an adult activity that I am perfectly able to control, afford and enjoy just because Billy-bob over there can't keep from betting his who

1) Yahoo, etc, used to have online gaming for various games of chance. If you let people select their opponents, I have no idea how you prevent people from playing for money. Example is a bunch of coworkers figure out how to play each other and settle up the cash later. I have been involved in this general class of activity, more than a decade ago. Major hint: If your screen name is obviously a dude people leave you

I mean generally, yes, we don't need judges wasting their time with this shit, but this is no time to be legalizing what is essentially a formalized 419 scheme.

If it's online, you're basically guaranteed to lose, because the house can rig the game so easily it's not even funny. In a real casino they at least have to maintain the appearance that you have a chance of winning something.

You have obviously not done any gambling online. A large percentage, perhaps even the majority of online gambling, is poker. When you go to an online poker site, you are not playing against the house/online gambling site. You are playing against other players, and the gambling site gets its money by charging a fee, a percentage of the buy in in a tournament or a percentage of the pot.

Of course there is no 100% guarantee that the online gambling site is not putting an employee that can see the cards in on a table, but that would really net them so little money in comparison to hosting 100's or even thousands of tables simultaneously, and getting their little fee from each of them. Not the mention the damage to their reputation if it were discovered (there is great competition amongst online poker sites.)

You have obviously not done any gambling online. A large percentage, perhaps even the majority of online gambling, is poker. When you go to an online poker site, you are not playing against the house/online gambling site. You are playing against other players, and the gambling site gets its money by charging a fee, a percentage of the buy in in a tournament or a percentage of the pot.

I wouldn't even put poker in the same "gambling" category as casino games (online or otherwise), as it was clearly demonstrat

It is actually a little bit more complicated than that. I learned and played no limit holdem online for about two months, and the dynamics of the game are really intense, really deep, and really complicated. A bot that won every winning hand it was dealt would be easily spotted. Maybe not by the players that aren't that good, but those players generally play at the low stakes table, thus defeating the bot's earnings potential. It is undoubtedly in the interest of the poker site operators to find and elimina

Obviously you don't want the bot to win 100% of the time, but making it win at a much higher than average rate is child's play

If you are talking about poker, then you have no idea what you are talking about. Some opponent could re-raise the bet forcing the bot to fold while he was bluffing or re-raise while he actually got a very good hand. How the bot can read a bluff? I'm not saying it cannot be done using some machine learning methods, but it's not easy as you make it sound. And sure you cannot make 100% winnings. Especially if your opponents are good players. Moreover, if your opponents can find a pattern in the decisions of t

Why would the house, online or otherwise, bother rigging a game that is already in their favor in the first place? That would be rigging it twice. If anything, an online casino should be able to give you better odds (still bad odds though) because they don't have to pay for a building, dealers, etc.

I'm not a democrat or a republican so lets clear that political nonsense up right now. I'm so sick and tired of having to protect people from themselves when it's something that THEY can control. Sure some people may need help but it shouldn't be the governments job to prevent this.

If someone doesn't do research on something they put money into... well... that's their loss. If they are STUPID enough to think that gambling will eventually pay off then they deserve to lose everything they bet. That's why it's called gambling.

There HAS to be a point where responsibility is the burden of the risk taker. "I didn't know" or "I'm addicted" just won't cut it. You pay the price for the decisions you make in life.

This isn't like insider trading, or drug testing. You know exactly what you are getting into simply via the title of what you're doing. I'm so sick and tired of hearing people complain about gambling addiction and then blaming the Casino's or online companies. NOONE forced you to bet the money, you did it.

I do not want this great country to start managing my life choices. If I want to be an idiot and gamble away something I can't afford... then that's MY responsibility.

If you want to have a chance at monitoring things like this then you need to set ground rules that CAN be enforced.

1) Anything over $10,000 must be claimed (just like current customs rules) and taxes applied. If caught not doing so, the penalty is severe (20% of amount brought in) + jailtime/community service

2) Gambling income is considered just like typical earnings. You have to pay appropriate taxes on income. Some people are good enough to make this profitable. Why stop them if they are willing to pay taxes on it.

There is ZERO need to regulate this. People go to Vegas for the experience. There is a world of difference between betting $1000 online and sitting at a table with a crowd around you as you bed $1000 and win. I'd know.

It's similar to saying that every person would be able to control what they're eating, if everything were printed on the label. However, as we already see today, you can put processed crap into food, put it on the label, and people will still buy and eat it, if it's cheap.

So why don't the Gov ban unhealthy foods then? Could it be that there's no money in it for them? If they were serious about trying to protect the population from their own stupidity they'd do it. And make tobacco illegal. etc.

All the (US) Gov has to do is specify a bunch of rules for any US citizen signing up to some online gambling site: A welcome page that explains the rules and shows the percentages (eg for slot/fruit machines, black jack, etc) and perhaps even a cooling off period - you'll get your l

I don't want to be more cynical than necessary but stories like this are simply deliberate leaks from Congress to stimulate contributions from both sides of an issue....

I can understand people lobbying to make it legal but who the hell is throwing money at Congress trying to keep it illegal, and why?
The pro-internet gambling side have an obvious 'side' here. If it becomes legal they are likely to make more money. Simples.
The anti-internet gambling folks though... what do they gain? What's in it for them?
Are they also making money out of it, 'cos that then sounds like some sort of Congress sponsored protection racket... No Thanks!
Are they agin it for some other reaso

The brick and mortar casinos. If people have the convenience of being able to go across the living room to gamble for actual cash, they're not going to arrange trips across the country to do so.

It's no coincidence that the prohibition excludes fantasy sports, online lotteries, and horse racing. The brick and mortars have had those forms of remote wagering available for some time. If this was purely a morality and citizen protection issue, why the e

Buncha hypocrites. The whole dispute over online gaming is similar to the war on some drugs. Legal online gambling [wikipedia.org]

Some people make money, others lose a lot. Some can get quite addicted to it and go really bust, and suffer all the social ills they worry about with online poker or whatever other game.

And we have never had any big economic meltdown from online poker or blackjack, but we sure as heck had a major problem with credit default swaps and so on "gaming", including the use of bots [blogspot.com] for gambling with massive bets that are large enough to move the markets themselves, plus crony gambling insiders [salon.com] being shuffled into and out of the official currency creation/interest setting and so called "regulation" part of that scene.

Not gambling at all. Derivatives are a sure thing. You trade and trade and trade until the value of the underlying goes to shit and then let the government backstop the otherwise-worthless paper so that it doesn't get marked to market. All profit, no risk. Of course, you have to be a multi-billion dollar financial institution to play, so start saving your pennies and get ready to write those checks to your favorite, and not-so-favorite, politicians.

I think the sooner, the better. Solid competition from USA-based casinos would allow for a well-regulated, well-run environment. Even Reservation Casinos would do well. Why? Only US-based casinos could offer incentives to players to come to their hotels and restaurants. If Caesar's offered their player-points to players away from the casino, they'd be able to make money without a customer there, but then when they have some points, they can come in and take care of them. Customers will want to go, and will inherently trust domestic bookmakers more than offshore.
Just ensure that all online-gambling is FEDERALLY taxed. Get something out of it, please. Tax the stupid.

I do not understand, if they make it unlawful it still gives the same incentives, isn't it ?

No because the traditional way to enforce the ban on gambling has been to make all gambling debts unenforceable in court. You lose, you don't pay, the casino can't do anything.

If you legalize it, then it means the debts can be pursued in local courts, your wages garnished, your possessions seized.

Legal online gambling is a bad idea. When casino's open theft crimes go up. With the rise of indian gaming casino's we've done this experiment over and over. It's not arguable that casino's drain money out of a community in a way that is harmful. The only people who gain, are the big mecca casino's that get money from people outside of their local community.

If you legalize it on-line, it will flow over seas. Which direction will if flow? it doesn't matter. All it does is hurt most communities.

Games of chance and the lottery are a tax on people who are poor at math, and I wholeheartedly support it.

Thank you for proving that while many laws are passed for absolutely terrible reasons, there are always -worse- motivations that our lawmakers didn't go with.

Taxes go to the government, where they're at least supposed to be spent on social welfare programs, defense, infrastructure, etc. Online casino revenue will go either to more annoying ads and spam for online casinos or directly into the pockets of it's shareholders. If your motivation is to punish people who are bad at math, at least we could do something useful with that money if it were an -actual- tax.

And why abuse people who are bad at math? If you gamble away all that you have, that hurts your family. You lose your house, that hurts your neighbors. It's really just elitism that makes you say that isn't it? That's pretty sad.

Legal online gambling is a bad idea. When casino's open theft crimes go up. With the rise of indian gaming casino's we've done this experiment over and over. It's not arguable that casino's drain money out of a community in a way that is harmful. The only people who gain, are the big mecca casino's that get money from people outside of their local community.
If you legalize it on-line, it will flow over seas. Which direction will if flow? it doesn't matter. All it does is hurt most communities.

February 8, 2010 (LPAC)—American statesman Lyndon LaRouche characterized Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) as "a degenerate," yesterday, upon being briefed that Frank will try to ram through the legalization of Internet gambling for poker, and thereby thwart a law enacted in 2006. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 bars U.S. banks from accepting payments to settle online wagers. The bill was to go into effect Dec. 1, but Tim Gei

If you make online gambling lawful, it just gives the online casinos incentive to go overseas to avoid paying any tax whatsoever.

I continue to be impressed by your talents though this isn't your usual fare. This is clearly true because we all know that making online gambling illegal gives online casinos incentive to stay in the US. It's like if we legalized pot smoking in K-12 school. It would encourage students to smoke off campus due to the taxes!

The difference being that you can't offshore your pot dealing activities due to your clients not being there. He may have a point, given that there is another location where they can a) set up large datacenters, b) get decent connectivity to the US, c) not pay taxes and d) not get their asses prosecuted.

But what makes that different to the current situation in the US? Is it illegal for US citizens (while in the US) to gamble online at sites hosted elsewhere in the world? Given the amount of spam I get for online casinos (with most of the sign-up bonuses quoted in dollars) I assumed it was not, but I'm wiling to be proved wrong.

Ironically, it's easier for a twelve year old to buy pot than it is for me to. As an adult, I could be the Secret Police ("undercover"), but not a twelve year old.

You can buy pot in any high school, but not beer. That should tell people something about their misguided drug laws, which cause the very problems they purport to solve. The same goes for gambling, prostitution, and other victimless crimes.

The first time I was in Eugene, Oregon, I was looking for a bottle of rum at about 9 at night.

I went to two different stores before discovering that you can't buy rum in a grocery store in Oregon. After learning of the existence of specialized liquor stores, I was walking downtown in search of one. I asked several passersby if they could give me directions.

The only ones I could find were closed.

In the end, nobody could help me find rum.But three different people offered to sell me pot, and one offered LSD.

One of the problems with overseas casinos is lack of oversight. With no oversight, there's a very good chance that the casino you are logged into will cheat. After all, why not? What have they got to lose? It's not like you can report them to some authority. Heck, even online poker they can throw in a house hand that wins in addition to taking a cut of the pot officially. Nothing to stop them.

So what does legalizing it in the US get? It allows for oversight. Sure some places will break or bend the

I was arguing that without any disincentive, casinos will cheat. Then you said casinos can make money without cheating. Where in my post did I say that casinos can't make money without cheating? I wasn't talking about whether or not a casino can make money without cheating, I was talking about reasons why a casino would NOT cheat. Casinos are businesses. The purpose of a business is to make money. More specifically to make as much money as possible. A simple risk benefit analysis will

I agree with your points, however I think in the larger context if online gambling were allowed, it seems to me that they would have to be subject to the same oversight and regulation as the "brick & mortar" casinos. So if such things can be applied and enforced for on-line based casinos, we would assume the incentive to cheat would be about the same.

Successful implementation of some kind accreditation of on-line casinos would probably mitigate off-shore ventures - almost by definition such would be un

And in vegas there is a massive industry around the process of verification of the accuracy of the odds and ensuring that the house does not stack the odds below the prescribed limits and laws about how they operate.

To be worth the aggravation they'd have to make good money doing it. If they're making good money doing it the players will notice and play elsewhere. Even with the ban there's brutal competition for players.

"Funny" may be pushing it a bit. The odds he offered were 6/1 for yes, and 2/5 for no. If I bet £10 on yes and win, I get 6 times my stake in winnings, plus my stake returned for a total of £70. If I bet £50 on no and win, I get 2/5 times my stake in winnings, plus my stake returned, also for a total of £70. So if I bet on both yes and no, then I'm guaranteed to get £70 back, despite only having staked £60. Obviously this scales linearly with a higher stake.